REFLECTING AND MODULATING TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY IDEOLOGICAL STANDPOINTS: A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ABEL CHUNGU’S SONG ‘MWAMUNA SAMALILA’

Keywords: Song Lyrics, Stylistics, Masculinity, Traditional Masculinity Ideologies, Modulating

Abstract

Using artistic expressions undergirded in musical affordances, this article interrogates Abel Chungu’s song, ‘Mwamuna Samalila’ (A man does not cry) as a resource that enacts, upholds and contests ideologies. In particular, the article draws attention on the social constructs that are often produced through language and musicology, developed, deployed and strategically positioned to project phenomena such as masculinity ideologies. For its theoretical and methodological grounding, the article draws on stylistics as it takes the song in question as a text. This is in a bid to enhance the understanding and conveyance of ideas and themes reflected in songs as a text occurrence. Thus, it becomes apparent that there is a sense in which the lyrics respond to core theoretically derived social constructs of traditional masculinity ideologies. Through close examination of stylistic elements, it is observed that lyrical efforts are made to reflect and modulate seemingly dysfunctional aspects of masculinity ideologies. The song serves as a call for attention to prevailing and problematic masculinity ideologies and practices, kindling more rethinking, restructuring, theorising, and re-evaluating.

Author Biographies

Trevor Mwansa, University of Zambia
Trevor Mwansa is a lecturer in the Department of Arts, Languages and Literary Studies at the University of Zambia. His teaching and research interests include among others, literary theory, poetry, African literature, African-American literature, American literature, English literature, culture, education, leadership, eco-criticism, modernism and post-modernism. His recent publication is dubbed: ‘Coping with Racism: An Analysis of Defence Mechanisms Employed by Lubinda in Dominic Muliasho’s The Tongue of the Dumb’.
Hambaba Jimaima, University of Zambia
Hambaba Jimaima holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics. He is a senior lecturer in the Department of Arts, Languages and Literary Studies at the University of Zambia. His research interests revolve around semiotics, multilingual memory and multimodality, predicated on language production and consumption in the public spaces as expressed in the published works on: ORCID: 0000-0001-7535-2033.
Gabriel Simungala, University of Zambia
Gabriel Simungala is a special research fellow at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa and a lecturer of sociolinguistics in the Department of Arts, Languages and Literary Studies at the University of Zambia. He has published extensively in language education, youth and pop culture, critical and multimodal discourse analysis, globalisation and mobility, linguistic/semiotic landscapes, Bantu linguistics and the sociolinguistics of language contact. His recent publications include Legitimisation and Recontextualisation of Languages: The Imbalance of Powers in a Multilingual Landscape, among others.
Published
2023-08-09
How to Cite
Mwansa, T., Jimaima, H., & Simungala, G. (2023). REFLECTING AND MODULATING TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY IDEOLOGICAL STANDPOINTS: A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ABEL CHUNGU’S SONG ‘MWAMUNA SAMALILA’. ZANGO: Zambian Journal of Contemporary Issues, 36(1), 1-14. Retrieved from https://nscme.unza.zm/index.php/ZJOCI/article/view/1035